Ivory and Eyes
by ICMezzo
Summary: A thousand eyes are all singularly focused on him as he prepares to tear each member of the audience apart. If he is lucky, he too will come undone. This fic was written for the Twilight Kink Fest. Warnings: Autagonistophilia, sexual content. AH, Rated M


**Ivory and Eyes**

_A/N: This fic was written for the Twilight Kink Fest. View the original photo prompt at _http: / / twikinkfest(dot)tumblr(dot)com / post / 12457260199

_Warnings: Autagonistophilia, sexual content. Rated M. _

_I suggest listening to Erik Satie's _Gnossiennes_ as you read. The links are below_:  
><em>No. #1: http:  / youtu(dot)be / HI8iVpYaDi0_  
><em>No. #2: http:  / youtu(dot)be / fdT2Y-FXxmo_  
><em>No. #3: http:  / youtu(dot)be / t0KQsxDrfVY_  
><em>No. #4: http:  / youtu(dot)be / QvS0AJhsbjM_  
><em>No. #5: http:  / youtu(dot)be / 51lcb9TFKrI_  
><em>No. #6: http:  / youtu(dot)be / Y-na2YbwSps_  
><em>No. #7: http:  / youtu(dot)be / 6JFidmuZ2Mw_

_Many thanks to my prereaders and betas, Theladyingrey42, Missyfits, and OnTheTurningAway._

_Disclaimer: All copyrights, trademarked items, or recognizable characters, plots, etc., mentioned herein belong to their respective owners. No copying or reproduction of this work is permitted without express authorization._

* * *

><p>He sits.<p>

Adjusts his position. Stretches. Brushes his hair back from his face.

Then, Edward listens.

A soft sigh. Nervous titters. A woman clears hers throat and a man shifts in his seat.

There are whispers, muffled coughs, and the rustle of paper programs.

He closes his eyes.

And they all fade away into nothingness.

It is a heavy silence; the weight of a thousand eyes are all singularly focused on him.

He takes a long shuddering breath, steadying his nerves and basking in the expectation.

Only he knows just how he is about to tear each member of the audience apart, before slowly, carefully putting them back together again, slightly differently than they were before.

If he is lucky, he too will come undone.

He smiles to himself. He's always loved this moment before the music. The tension and the possibility.

He opens his eyes and blinks rapidly against the lighting's harsh glare. Then, after placing his foot on the pedal, he raises his hands to the keys. His fingers curl over the cool blacks and whites that he will translate into color. Into smoldering heat, and passion, and life.

He inhales, and the audience breathes with him.

The first chord sounds at his practiced touch. Then the next, and the next after that. Softly, note after note emerges in the delicate melody of the first movement, haunting desire carefully hidden under minor chords and blue notes.

He lures the audience with the song, draws them under his spell.

Measure by measure.

Layer by layer.

Piece by piece, element by element, he reduces the audience, until they are laid bare before him, readied by the unassuming rhythms and enticing harmonic progression.

Nor is the seduction one-sided. With every note, he too is bared to them. Every phrase a collar loosened, a garment peeled back, a raiment untucked.

Until he is utterly naked before them.

And they before him.

Straining forward in their seats, they are eager to hear more, caught up in the touch of his fingers that press against the keys just so, holding the ivory captive until each release makes their hearts race faster.

Only the piano between them.

The heat of the stage lights causes perspiration to bead at his temple. A single droplet, too heavy to remain in place, slides over his skin from the edge of his damp hairline down, down his neck and down his back, gaining momentum as it silently descends, until finally it comes to rest on the cool leather bench on which he sits.

The music is in control now; as much as he gives it life, it leads him, pulling him forward as it draws in his listeners.

It touches him, and he, in turn, them.

One phrase is the brush of fingertips across cheekbones.

The next, a soft hand presses against a neck.

One forehead finds another. Lips part, softly breathing in the air of the other, while as yet unknowing the intimate press of lips, but wanting it, more and more and more desperately with every progressing measure.

But the composer will not let them, not just yet, for when Edward thinks he can wait no longer, the music relinquishes its hold. He steps back, and with the final chord, he releases his audience back into their seats.

And suddenly, he finds himself alone, on his bench, on a stage, under the hot lights and hotter stares, and he's not sure he can properly breathe through the interminable silence that must lapse before he can approach the next movement.

His audience waits for him though.

He doesn't make them wait long. Soon, his fingers press the keys once more, and their intimate world is as if they never left it. Satie's world is sparse and vulnerable, needy and wanting. Edward embodies this as he plays on, each movement serving its role in the seduction. This phrase is a gentle caress, a whispered word, a soft breath, a slow dance, a ghost of a touch, and finally, finally, a kiss, sweet and full and lasting only a moment before he must pull away again as another movement comes to its end.

Completely immersed, he istemporarily disoriented by the silence, the lack of notes on the page. He blinks against the lights that hurt his eyes. He can't resist, knows he should give it more time, but he needs to be back in the make believe world where everything is a dance, warm and sensual. He pauses only a moment more before he picks up his hands from his lap and places his fingers against the ivory; it is better to live again in his music, where everything is beautiful and right. The next in the series he imagines to be a chase between a lover who needs to be taken, a melody requiring capture and dominance, and a hunter who resides in the darker powerful chordal harmonies.

The erotic pursuit is not a long one. It leads to an end that had been understood since before the first notes had sounded: The fourth movement.

Here, Edward takes his audience to his bed.

He lies his lover down beneath him on a bed of arpeggios and soft song, caresses bare flesh, brushes his lips along heated skin, licks the salty sweat from his lover's neck.

His audience watches.

And they _know._

They know he is making love in front of their eyes.

And they want more from him. They want him to take them.

The thought would send a shudder down his spine if he stopped to think about it. But he doesn't. Instead, it makes him hard.

Edward gives in to the moment, allows his body to feel each harmony, live in each sensual phrase he plays. He feels every single note as he presses into his lover. Bodies arch in accordance with the intimate melodies, caressing and grasping slick hot skin as the chords demand, pausing only when the music grants them rest.

He knows the end of the movement comes abruptly, but he is not ready to let go. This time, he stays in his world as he presses the final chord. He imagines that his lover takes his fingers, grasping them, leaving him unable to sound another note as he finds them kissed and caressed and taken between warm lips. Edward stares, his gaze transfixed, as he slides his fingers, now glistening wetly from his lover's mouth, teeth scraping lightly against the fingertips that are Edward's life. Only when his lover lets him go, is he free to play again.

He does so with a smile, and lightly curls his lover against him, wrapping notes of sweet nothings and chords of contentment around them. Makes love slowly, sweetly, in time with the delicate melodies of the fifth movement. Every flourish is a kiss, every grace note a tender touch. When Edward begins the sixth, his lovemaking intensifies with the music he embodies. He finds his hips canting forward along with the unrelenting momentum of the bass line, as he presses his lips to the shoulder of his lover, clings to a bared thigh, drags his mouth along the line of his lover's neck. His knowing fingers slide along the keys as he enters the body of his lover again and again, slick and with purpose, pausing only to change positions and find a new rhythm when the movement comes to an end.

When Edward begins the final piece, he leans in a little closer to the piano, presses the keys a bit more firmly, every note pulling him, pulling _them,_ forward. He catches his lover up in his arms, places open mouthed kisses along goose-bumped skin, grips yearning flesh, tangles his tongue with the eager mouth open before him. What has been slow and teasing becomes more, louder, harder, faster...

The build has been too intense, the foreplay too long, and his audience is at the brink with him. He sees their bodies writhing, entwined, and on edge, and it seems as if he suddenly understands everything there is to know in the world. Just then, the music peaks, and he feels his audience relinquish control as the climax sweeps through the hall. They grip him tightly as they let go, mouths openas they silently shatter around him.

He wraps them up within the music, gently letting the notes caress them softly through their completion. Only when they are ready does he carefully allow them to fallback to earth, back into their seats, back into the performance, back into their lives and loves and thoughts.

As the final measures approach, he leaves them, returning to his piano bench, exhausted and emptied.

He has given them everything he had. He feels gutted. Drained.

He presses his fingers against the keys one last time and the final chord colors the air, fading slowly into utter silence.

And then Edward waits. Waits to find out if it was worth it. Waits to find out if they loved him. If it meant anything. If it was good for them too.

He holds his breath through the silence that seems to continue for longer than it should.

Until suddenly the auditorium explodes with the harsh sound of hands crashing against each other, with whistles, seemingly out of place and uncouth. And with the shouts of bravo from the woman who cleared her throat and the man who shifted in his seat.

Inside, he collapses with exhaustion, while somehow, he finds himself getting to his feet, stepping away from his bench. He bows as etiquette demands, though it seems strange to him, as though he could have done it without them.

He blinks against the harsh lighting and closes his eyes tightly, overwhelmed by the attention, quite unsure what to do with it all.

When he opens them again, he is back in his living room, at the ancient practice piano given to him when he was just a child. The space is cluttered with books and scores and CDs and empty glasses. There are no stage lights heating the room, only the ancient radiator clicking away in the corner. He has no audience, save for his cat sleeping away in the next room. It is just him, naked and alone with his memories of the evening before, the evening when he gave everything in himself to the sea of people before him.

He will relive it as often as possible, again and again and again, until the next performance comes along, until he finds himself bared and vulnerable once again on a new stage, with a different song in his fingertips.

But for now, he has the memory of _Gnossiennes _sharp in his mind.

Edward touches himself.

Closes his eyes and takes himself in hand as, once again, he feels the weight of a thousand eyes singularly focused on him.

He smiles to himself. He's always loved this moment. The tension and the possibility.

He remembers how his fingers curled over the cool keys, how he dripped desire onto the cool blacks and whites. How he lured them in.

Measure by measure.

Layer by layer.

Piece by piece.

Readied by the unassuming rhythms and enticing harmonic progression until they were caught up in the touch of his fingers.

Only the piano between them.


End file.
